‘Love in Context’ equipping session offers biblical and historical reflections on the meaning of love

By Frank Ramirez

“What’s love got to do with it?” someone asked musically, many years ago (the song was written by Graham Lyle and Terry Britten, and recorded by Tina Turner).

Agape love in the Bible and the love found in Church of the Brethren communities of faith has more to do with how we act towards and with each other than it has to do with any “second-hand emotion,” as confirmed by Dan Ulrich and Denise Kettering-Lane, faculty members at Bethany Theological Seminary. The two spoke at an equipping session on Friday evening at the Annual Conference.

The Greek word agape is used more than 200 times as a verb and a noun in the Greek New Testament, according to Ulrich. It is “not primarily an emotion. It’s primarily an action, although our emotions are connected to our actions.” The other word used for love in the New Testament, philos, is used 22 times, and speaks more about loving as a friend or as a member of an affiliated group.

*The worship center for this Annual Conference. Photo by Glenn Riegel*

“Agape does not depend on the attractiveness of the one who is loved. Agape is based on the one who is loving,” Ulrich said. He outlined how, in the famous love chapter of 1 Corinthians 13 agape is understood as a gift from God, without which the gifts the Corinthians boasted about are worthless. Its characteristics are essential to life in community. In response to the question if this is a “heavenly love,” he responded that agape is seen in the New Testament as “a permanent feature of the coming Messianic Age.”

This particular passage from 1 Corinthians 13 is often used in weddings, which Ulrich described as a good thing. But it is taken out of context. Eros, the Greek word for love tied to physical attraction, “is essential to a healthy marriage, but without agape, eros is also less helpful. Without agape, eros can be self-serving or transitory.”

Ulrich outlined how the uses of agape love find their root in Leviticus 19:17-18, the passage from which Jesus drew the commandment to love one’s neighbor as oneself. It reaches its height in Leviticus 19:34, which admonishes us to love the alien in our midst as ourselves. This is further seen in Romans 12 and Hebrews 13, where the Greek word philoxenias, literally “love of strangers,” is also the word for hospitality.

“Jesus expands this to include enemies in Matthew 5:33-34,” Ulrich said. And Jesus models agape in John 15:12-13: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

Agape love, Ulrich concluded, is “a pattern of acting for the good of others.”

Denise Kettering-Lane noted that the word love appears more than 2,400 times in the Annual Conference minutes over the years, especially with regard to disciplinary actions, discipleship, and greetings. “It’s a behavioral imperative about how we treat one another. It’s not about feelings.” And because the minutes have more to do with how we deal with our fellow believers instead of worship, love in the minutes is mostly about relationships between humans and not with God.

The earliest use is found in the minutes concerning the controversy in 1763 surrounding Catharine Hummer’s visions. Hummer, the first woman to preach among the Brethren, claimed angels warned her about the Brethren slipping away from faithfulness, as well as taking her into heaven where she saw people baptized after death. The annual meeting admonished those who were failing to act in love towards each other, and called for all rumors and harsh expressions to be entirely renounced.

“They were not weighing in on whether the visions were real but how both sides were treating each other,” Kettering-Lane said.

A statement in 1779 rebuked Brethren for their lack of love and their behavior towards each other in the wake of differences about the Revolutionary War.

In 1789, some Brethren were rebuked for their distilleries and in that decision, the word love is mentioned seven times, as they were admonished to submit to each other in love.

In the 19th century minutes, love is related to the attitude towards those engaged in unsuitable behaviors. Brethren were warned, “Love should be long-suffering and heartfelt.” Since God’s discipline was based in love, heartfelt love was the way to welcome back into the fold those who strayed.

In the 20th century, Kettering-Lane said, “Love motivates Christian conduct.” The 1918 Goshen Statement emphasized 1 John 3:16, that one ought to lay down one’s life for brothers and sisters. The 1964 Christian Ethics paper described love as “the heart of the Christian life.”

She concluded by discussing love feast with an emphasis on the holy kiss. For Brethren, it provided an opportunity to repair relationships with God and to repair human relationships, providing for both vertical and horizontal relationships. As early as 1822, there was a query which requested tables set aside for older members who may not have been able to eat what was served to everyone else.

The Brethren emphasized the holy kiss for the first two and a half centuries of our history, insisting it not be performed in a perfunctory manner. One Brethren was quoted to the effect that “a love feast without this token of love would scarcely deserve the name.”

A lively question and answer time followed their presentations.

— Frank Ramirez is a retired pastor and a volunteer on the Annual Conference Press Team.

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